


Not in My City

by colorguardian10



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: I Must Make Everything Gay, M/M, There's only mild flirting but I felt the mention was warranted lol, mentions of blood and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 01:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18982093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorguardian10/pseuds/colorguardian10
Summary: I literally made an account for this fanfic I'm not much of a writer lolI just love that trope of disparate groups using extremely different skills to work together on something. If they used to be enemies? Good Shit™Takes place during the events of War of the Spark. I really, really wish we got to see more of the guilds working together. I was living for the bond cycle, Mobilized District, etc.Here's a Dimir agent working with a bunch of Selesnyan Ledev guardians!If I get the itch again I might add more team-ups in other chapters, but for now this is a one-shot





	Not in My City

“Lieutenant, something urgent!”  
Ledev Guardian Lieutenant Brova didn’t answer right away. Brova was an elf of typical appearance among the Selesnya, blond, fair, and elegant. Currently he was busy fighting three of the strange blue zombies, all grasping at him and his massive pure white wolf partner. Guardian Trist waited patiently while he finished.  
Lieutenant Brova caught the last one with a dramatic stab of his spear, impaling the warrior long enough for his wolf to tear off its head. He wiped his spear off on the nearby grass, murmuring to it about feeding and cycles. He turned. “Yes, Trist?”  
Trist was another soldier of the Ledev, all of whom rode pure white wolves as mounts and partners. Trist saluted, tapping their helmet that was wider at the top, resembling the Selesnya symbol, and continued,  
“More survivors, Brova. That crowd we just caught these ones with? Some were only injured. If we hurry we can get maybe a score to safety.”  
“Gods, Guardian. Let’s go then. It seems all of Ravnica needs our attention.”  
Trist grinned lopsidedly. “Thought you’d say that, Lieutenant.” Trist turned on their great wolf and bounded back towards the building they had found the bodies in.  
In the building, laying on a dark green tarp made for medical emergencies such as this, an olive-skinned, dark-haired human man wearing Dimir colors stirred, a bandage on his head.

 

Servis opened his eyes, and regretted it a second later. What happened? He’d been minding his own business, having a morning stroll along the square near his house, when nearly the whole world shook. Then a massive sigil appeared the Azorius headquarters, and the sky went dark like some bad apocalypse novel. A few minutes after that, everyone in the park standing around muttering about just what the hell was happening, and people came screaming and running from the direction of the center of town. An army of monsters was marching out of a hole in the world, a portal that had materialized in the middle of the Embassy of the Guildpact. Hot on their heels were the so-called monsters, which really didn’t look all that different from regular old zombies, just coated in some shiny blue substance- oh. He should be running.  
But they were everywhere. They seemed to be avoiding buildings, and fortunately he found himself crammed inside with nearly a hundred others a few blocks away. Only his Dimir mage training had let him make it that far, and he saw many who didn’t on the way. Unfortunately, some foolish hero decided to blunder out at exactly the wrong moment, and the building was swarmed. It was fast and brutal. Servis didn’t really remember how he fell, but already he was glad he had somehow made it out alive, despite the best efforts of these “Eternals”.  
He opened his eyes again. There was some elf leaning over him now, who exclaimed at the sight. She turned her head and shouted, “Hey! Doe #3 is up!”  
Soon, he was surrounded by three more, who hoisted him onto his feet. He didn’t like the feeling of so many people around him, watching him. _I am nothing, I am nothing_ \- No. Not now. That was for missions and keeping himself and his charges safe. Servis’s magic was not for outsiders to know.   
At these sobering thoughts he straightened, far less woozy than he probably should have been. Selesnyans knew their stuff when it came to healing. One of the elves, seeing this, said to him, “Can you move? Everything’s gone to shit. We’re going to try to get you and the other survivors here to safety.”  
Oh, gods. The fight. The blood was everywhere. Servis took stock. Presumably the soldiers had moved some of the bodies to make room for the six unconscious injured he could see. “I’m f-fine.” He finally said, the very picture of a shell-shocked civilian. Failure of an assassin and kidnapper he may be, but it still wouldn’t do for them to know just how familiar he was with the sight of bodies. “Who are you? How many of us made it?”  
The soldier, who he could now see was a darker elf with striking green eyes, said, “Fourteenth Ledev Squad reporting. We found twenty-one alive when we got here. One’s died since, and we don’t think two are going to make it to Vitu-Ghazi, though. You’re one of the last who’s going to wake up, we think. ...About sixty dead, we didn’t exactly count.”  
Servis did. There had been ninety-seven people inside. Seventy-seven dead. Seventy-nine, soon. He made his eyes widen dramatically “Gods. That’s horrible. You’re going to keep us safe?”  
“That’s the plan. We have the training and the calling. If we can get a few more civilians out of this, at least we’ll have done our jobs. You may not be Selesnya, but these Eternals don’t seem to be discriminating. Why should we?”  
All he needed to do was stand behind them and wait this whole debacle out. Perfect.

 

It was not perfect. The Eternals had swarmed the district by the time they got moving. Twenty-five soldiers on wolfback and thirteen civilians carrying four more in emergency stretchers wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.   
_There’s one thing you could do._ His mind whispered. He couldn’t reveal himself to these strangers, certainly not after already concocting some tale about being a courier. He tamped down the urge to help, again and again, even when he saw one of the soldiers fall. They kept going.  
The soldiers seemed tireless. They moved as one unit, a pack. But they weren’t infallible. The civilians even had to hold off one zombie with broomsticks while the Ledev doubled down, unaware of the breach. Servis did take his dagger out for that, but that wasn’t exactly unusual.

 

“Lieutenant.”  
“Yes?”  
The one with the gold helmet, presumably the leader, was pulled aside by one of the soldiers. This one frequently left their mount, Servis noticed, probably to scout ahead. The other soldiers were still fighting, as one or two wandering Eternals were lurking around every corner. Any time the soldiers should have been able to take a breath, there were always more. The motley group might make it to Vitu-Ghazi in an hour at their current pace. They held fast.   
Servis deliberated before murmuring a spell to listen in, leaning against a wall and looking down. He had only ever shown promise in one particular area, but any old dabbler could manipulate a voice from across the street. What he heard was not good. There was a massive unit of Eternals coming their way, more than the soldiers could easily take on. They’d been dodging around these groups, weaving a caterpillar’s path around the city, but there was an even bigger group approaching from the other direction. They could only hope to ram through quickly enough to give the civilians a path, but the soldiers’ chances didn’t look good.  
The Lieutenant’s face looked grim. They hadn’t gone this far with so many survivors only to save their own skins. They would make a hell of a fight out of it.

 

The soldiers were all shifting nervously. They had a plan, and navigated around so that they could charge the Eternals from an alley as they passed. The civilians had been given directions, and best hopes that most of them could run quickly enough to make it. Servis would of course, cloaked in his fog, but everyone knew it was grim. They’d already left the unconscious civilians in a nearby building.  
They waited.  
One line of Eternals came into view, and Servis heard a barely suppressed gasp behind him. Two elves, presumably a couple, were crying and holding each other. The Lieutenant’s mouth made an even harder line. The Eternals didn’t glace aside.  
Servis looked up and saw one of the birdlike Eternals swoop overhead. They’d alert the army soon enough if they didn’t notice the survivors and soldiers.  
 _No. No! Damn it. Damn it all. Like hell am I letting fucking aliens kill people from_ my city. Servis stumbled forward, just ahead of the soldiers. One of them reached out to swipe his cloak, but didn’t dare make any more sudden moves. The entire group froze and held their breath.  
Servis, however, took a deep breath in, pulling in as much mana as he could. Slowly, so slowly, he lowered himself to one knee and brought an index finger to his lips, in the traditional pose. The Dimir are as dramatic as they are secretive, make no mistake. _I am nothing._  
Wisps of smoke curled out of Servis’s sleeves, and soon spilled across the floor. _I am nothing. I am nothing. We are nothing. They are nothing. We are nothing._ The fog began to curl around the whole group, forming a thin sheen. One’s eyes seemed to glance off of it, even for those allowed to watch it happen.  
 _I am nothing I am nothing I am nothing I am nothing_  
An Eternal, out of formation, paused at the alley’s mouth and looked inside.  
And walked on.  
 _I am nothing I am nothing We are nothing I am nothing We are nothing._  
The Ledev still saw the moment to strike. The lieutenant shouted orders for the first time, previously afraid to attract attention, now wanting it. He charged forward with the other soldiers a step behind.  
The Eternals didn’t react.  
Now the Guardians were tearing into the army, bodies flying in an initial assault.  
The Eternals still did nothing.  
After a full five seconds the rest noticed that something was happening to them, and started swiping at the invisible force tearing through their group like paper.

 

 

_IamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothingIamNothing IamNo Thing I am Nothing I am Nothing I am I am I am I AM I AM_  
Servis jolted forward. He took great heaving gasps as his body warmed, sped up, remembered that he was _not nothing_ , he had a heart and lungs and a brain that needed to keep working. That was close. He had almost _nothing_ ’d himself out of existence again. ( _I am nothing We are nothing I am_ Servis) took stock.  
“Our secret mage is back! Are you okay? For a minute there you were... fading.”  
He felt warm arms around him, warm fur below him. This was nice. Maybe later he’d find whoever this was and find a way to be held like this again. For the moment, though:  
A human man, then. Dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes. Short beard. The pair was back a bit from the fighting, the soldier apparently in charge of guarding their secret weapon and counteracting some of the unnatural chill that had taken over him. There were only three Eternals now, which was a good sign.  
“Whatever you’re doing-” _I am nothing We are nothing We are nothing_ “-keeps them from seeing us. You gave us quite a heart attack, but I think we’re pretty grateful now. The group that was supposed to wipe us out? We trounced them. We’ve been fighting as we always have to get everyone the rest of the way, though I will say that it’s not exactly a fair fight anymore.”  
They were very nice eyes. “What’s your name?” Servis asked.  
“Oh, um, I’m Guardian Koil.” He shifted, apparently now aware of how close they were. “I can, um, move if you’d like, I just needed to keep you from falling off of Happy here-”  
“Oh no, this is _very_ comfortable.” Servis said, enjoying Koil’s deep blush. He decided that that was enough teasing. _I am nothing I am nothing I am nothing I am_ Servis moved a bit forward, giving the flustered Koil some room and the panting Happy a grateful pat on the deep fur of its head. “Outsiders aren’t supposed to know these kinds of things. We might have to wipe your memories after.”  
“...Oh.” Was all Koil said.  
“I’m only supposed to use it for my charges, to protect people from notice who we need to keep hidden.” Koil’s face suggested he could guess at the other uses for such a skill, but like hell was Servis going to say it out loud. “It’s harder to hide a whole group, not to mention when they’re spread out and moving. Sorry.”  
“Oh no, we were just worried for you. You faded in and out like you were a ghost. My hands started slipping right through you. But we were ready to protect you even without your gift.” Koil shuddered before going on, “Anyway, we’ve had to take a pretty wide side detour. Maybe we could take another group like that again, but we don’t exactly want to. Vitu-Ghazi’s in sight, but our optimistic time is still an hour.”  
Suddenly the scout came running back, taking far less care with their cloak of fog keeping the Eternals from looking in their direction. “Lieutenant! Lieutenant Brova!”  
However, something else was happening behind the pair riding Happy. They turned away from the conversation.  
A hole had appeared in the middle of the street. Grasping hands clothed in green and black started ushering survivors belowground.

 

The Golgari sealed up the hatch, and not a moment too soon. Two massive units had converged on the conspicuous line of disappearing zombies, driven by some unseen hand. Instead they found a pair of Izzet bombs waiting on each end of the street. The goblin chemister walking with them grinned as the tunnel shook violently above them, once, twice. Four guilds working in tandem. Who would have guessed?  
Of course, chances are there were members of all ten guilds present. Streams of survivors converged in chambers belowground where the Eternals couldn’t reach. Servis and the remains of Ledev Squad Fourteen stood head above shoulders in the crowd, eye to eye with the occasional ogre. Lieutenant Brova was talking to a pair of Golgari, one of several attendants who’d helped evacuate.  
Koil spoke up from behind. “I think we’re going to go back up, try to scavenge for more survivors.”  
Servis thought hard. He could stay. Let the real fighters sort all this out. Stay safe and hidden.  
Leave Ravnica to defend itself. Not fight for his home.  
“I’ll keep you covered,” Servis said, “if you’ll have me.”  
“Oh, I’ll... have...” Koil blushed very hard again. Servis laughed.

 

Trist carefully opened the door, wary of waiting crossbow bolts. They were, in fact, rewarded by one flying past them into the street. “Hey! We’re good guys, we’re going to get you safe. Ledev Squad Fourteen, plus this Dimir guy.” Opening the door further, they added, “It’s the most brilliant thing you’ve ever seen…”

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case it's not clear, Trist is nonbinary.


End file.
